Global warming may seem easy to ignore, because the effects appear far off and irrelevant to people living in first world countries. Climate change denial (or even acceptance without behavior modification) is perhaps the most extreme example of Hyperbolic Discounting in the history of the human race. Partly this is because it can seem impossible to make any changes yourself that will have an impact. I hope I can convince you otherwise.

I could write a long post with doomsday scenarios, but I’m more interested in changing behavior NOW, so we can mitigate the damage. Here are six things you can do immediately, in rough order of impact, that if everyone did would have an enormous impact on the problem:

Vote Hillary - I contend that no other issues in the political landscape today really matter. If we don’t solve this problem we won’t have a world to save. And we won’t have coffee or chocolate. Hillary Clinton is the only candidate with a rational approach to climate change(look at question #3)

Buy an electric car - As the grid transitions to renewable energy, auto transport will become a larger and larger portion of individual emissions. You don’t have to buy an expensive Tesla (although they are awesome), the Chevy Bolt is coming out imminently, is priced under $30K with tax credits, and has 238 miles of range

Reduce Individual Energy Consumption - Switch to LEDs, get a Nest, keep your house a little colder this winter and put on a sweatshirt. Depending on how much you can change your usage, this could have a minor impact or a significant one. This will also save you money

Buy Carbon Offsets - TerraPass makes this very easy, and for <$200 you can make your family carbon negative. This can have a big impact, but I put it at the bottom because permanently reducing consumption has a double effect: slowing the greenhouse effect and preventing us from needing to offset so much carbon

I’m personally doing or have done all of the above, and I encourage you to do the same.